


Acts of Man

by mjolkk (glassamilk)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s02e10 Mirror Mirror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mirror Universe, Non-Consensual Mind Meld, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:33:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassamilk/pseuds/mjolkk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This universe is beyond Leonard's comprehension for brutality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acts of Man

His first instinct is to laugh.

This universe is beyond Leonard's comprehension for brutality. In the hours since their unexpected arrival on the ISS Enterprise, they have witnessed systemic political violence on a previously unprecedented scale; stood by as subordinate officers twisted and cracked their own bones to escape the pain of a glass box while their commanders wiped the blood from their smiling faces. Watched as female officers slipped blades from their boots and clamped their thighs shut tight against the advances of a visiting admiral. Listened to the log entries of a mad captain.

Blood may as well stick to Leonard's feet as he walks through the ship which is why, when Spock's counterpart crumples from a blow to the head, the doctor insists that he be given time to treat him. This ship is is helping to commit genocide at the hands of this Spock and his ruthless captain, presumably also with the assistance of another Leonard McCoy, and so he bites down the taste of bile that rises with his breath and hauls the first officer of this treacherous Enterprise onto a biobed. Jim fights him on the decision. Their escape window is a narrow one. But Leonard argues for the five minutes he needs to save this other Spock's life. Not because he is weighted by duty or oath, but because he needs to prove to himself that he is nothing like the ISS McCoy that he has imagined in his head-- needs to soothe the tremors of violence that still occupy the space between his normally steady fingers with the reassurance that healing is healing is healing, regardless of the patient.      

But then Jim is gone and Spock is backing him up against a wall, fingers cold where they press against McCoy's temple, and his last thought before a chasm is ripped in his mind is that the goatee is hysterical. The gold sash, the knife, the beard. It all reeks of slapstick when placed within the context of a concept so horrifying as The Empire. Flamboyant, even. He can imagine his own counterpart with scars and rusty tools and sinister mechanical body parts, but the very thought of facing down a bedazzled, unshaven Doctor Leonard McCoy is preposterous.     

He'd laugh if he could.

 

* * *

 

Leonard isn't sure how much time has passed since Spock forced himself on his psyche when he comes back to a muzzy sort of awareness on the transporter pad. He's passively aware of Jim's hand on his elbow. He wonders if he could walk on his own, unable to bring himself to even try; his legs are no longer shaking, but his whole body has gone rigid, locked in place around a dark, empty feeling that is quickly overtaking him. He fears he is being held together by friction alone and a single step could ruin that. Could ruin their entire escape from this horrible place.

Spock is staring at him from the other side of the transporter bay. His eyes are black and Leonard vomits into his palms as soon as they have re-materialized on their own ship. He passes it off as transport anxiety and stumbles back to his quarters before anyone can stop to ask him. Before anyone else has a chance to reach inside him and  _tear_. 

 

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, Jim doesn't let it go.

"Come on, Bones, it's been three days since we got back and you're the only person on the away team who hasn't had his post-mission medical exam." He elbows Leonard lightly when he doesn't respond right away. "Booooones. If our positions were reversed, you would've thrown me to medical the second we got back and I'm gonna keep hassling you until you at least admit you're being a hypocrite."

Leonard has been picking at his lunch but his appetite has fled him. He has a headache. The lights in the mess hall are too bright, the sound of muted chatter and clinking utensils too loud, and he's felt light all day, weightless like the edges of fainting. He feels out of place in his own body. Ever since they came home, it's as if he can't organize his own thoughts beyond a constant litany of  _hide move conceal suppress suppress suppress._

_"_ Fine," he drops his fork and pushes his tray away. He's so tired. He just wants to finish his shift without incident and go back to the safety of his locked quarters, buried under the covers of his small bed and gritting his teeth against this bottomless cold while he waits for this fear to solve itself. "I'm a hypocrite, but I'm a busy hypocrite." Leonard rubs his forehead, resolute in his effort not to meet Jim's worried expression. "I'll have Christine check me out when I can, but for now we have more than a dozen time-sensitive experiments running between sickbay and astrochem that need my attention." 

Jim brightens. "If medical and astrochemistry are working together anyway, why don't I send you Spock? With his help, you'll be done in half the time, guaranteed or your credits back." He winks and starts to say something else, but stops immediately when he sees the color drain from Leonard's face. "Bones? You okay?"

A cold sweat suddenly saturates the fabric on the back of Leonard's uniform. He grips the edge of the table and swallows thickly. The emptiness is rapidly filling with a panic. Hands on his face. Fingers in his thoughts. Red, red, red. "No," he snaps. "Send someone else."

Jim scowls. "Why?"

"Just send someone else. Not Spock." Tightness is building in Leonard's body again; he's bracing himself for the sensation of cartwheeling through empty space when anyone mentions Spock and even though this tactic has worked for the last few days, he can feel his own foundation crumbling. He can't see Spock. Not yet. Not when he still can't find solid ground to put his feet on. He makes an aborted attempted to reach for his water glass. His hands are shaking. 

"That's not an answer, Bones, c'mon," Jim narrows his eyes when Leonard pulls his hand back like he's been burned. "I know you don't really get along with the guy, but if you give him a chance, I'm sure he'd be happy to--"

_Black eyes cold hands ripping tearing searing red red red red ship red signal stop stop stop_ "No!" Leonard shouts. He bangs his thigh against the edge of the table as he rockets to his feet and slams his napkin down on his plate. "Send someone else or don't send anyone at all!"

He tries to storm out. God help him he tries, but his knees lock mid-step and a passing yeoman has to catch his sleeve to keep him from toppling into his table. The young man looks visibly alarmed by Leonard's sudden presence and starts to ask if he's okay before the doctor shoves him back.

"Take your hands off me!" He barks. He knows he shouldn't be yelling at the poor kid. It's unprofessional and makes him embarrassed but the room is starting to tilt and Jim's concerned exclamations are turning to white noise in his ears. He curls his hands into fists. Closes his eyes and counts to ten. "Just... just don't worry about it, Jim. Christine and I can handle it. You need Spock on the bridge more 'n I need him in my sickbay."

"Bones..." Jim trails off and starts to come around the table, lunch forgotten. "You're bleeding."

Leonard wipes the back of his hand against his nose and grimaces when it comes away smeared with red.

_red red red Red Red RED RED RED_

Pain lances through him and for a moment he's sure he's going to pass out. It takes every scrap of self composure to keep his poker face in place when fragmented images are tearing through his headache, though he can't quite hide the way his feet stumble when he presses a napkin to his nose and excuses himself. 

 

* * *

 

That night, when he is getting ready for bed, the water in his sink turns to blood as he washes his face. Leonard retches into the waste basket, injects himself with a low dosage of amisulpride, and goes to sleep clutching his face and shaking.

He dreams of evisceration. 

 

* * *

 

Leonard manages to avoid Jim for most of the next morning, but Uhura is having none of it. She corners him when Christine is on her break and sickbay is empty save for a single ensign sleeping off engineering's latest mishap, catching him off guard and staring, sightless, at the padd in his hands. Her hand on his shoulder startles him. It's been a long time since anyone has been able to sneak up on him.

"You missed breakfast today," she speaks gently, like she's scolding a boy who has disappointed his mother. "You could have at least canceled and spared me the thirty minutes I spent sitting alone." 

"Sorry," he grimaces and starts to turn away. Starts to think of an excuse rather than telling her that he spent his morning on his knees in the sonic showers, head clutched between both hands while he heaved away his nightmares in the bile swirling down the drain, but she stops him.  Uhura slides her hand down to hold him in place by his upper arms, turning him around to look at her. 

"Leonard, are you okay? Ever since we got back home, you've been..." she pauses-- squeezes his arm a little. "When was the last time you shaved? Or ate?" 

Leonard swallows and for the briefest second, considers telling her everything; entertains the risk of showing her the jagged pieces of his mind that don't fit together anymore, too disjointed to do anything but float on top of the bottomless lake of red that has been poured into him. Wants to show her how it feels to have the most sensitive parts of yourself scraped out and replaced like a poorly set bone. He wants someone else to know what it's like to feel so twisted, weightless, and ruined.

But only for a second.

"I appreciate you checkin' in on me, darlin', but I'm all right. Just a little unnerved, you know how away missions are."

"Jim said you had a meltdown in the mess yesterday."  Uhura doesn't even give him a chance to seal his lie with a smile. 

He should be thanking her. Smiling brings the taste of boiled meat and sickness to his tongue these days. "I did  _not_ have a meltdown," he bites the words out like they hurt. The word "meltdown" conjures images of stolen body parts floating in sealed containers, human and alien alike, and he keeps his eyes focused on her to keep from seeing their ghostly afterimage on his own shelves. "I was just..." he trails off. Behind her, just on the edges of his vision, it looks like the walls are breathing. 

He is saved from having to explain himself by a lightly singed Scotty carrying another engineer who looks like she had a console blow up straight in her face. If Uhura's gaze on his back is half as concerned as her "I'll talk to you later, okay?" Leonard knows he won't be able to keep dodging this for much longer.

 

* * *

   

Leonard's shift is over at 18:00 but it takes him almost an hour past that to muster the courage to leave his office. Jim has been trying to comm him all day, coaxing him and bargaining with him to swing by his quarters after work to check in with him, and Leonard has been stoutly pretending that he didn't get the message. He's not enthused by the prospect of a chat even though Jim sounded casual in each of his requests. His headache had slid into the beginnings of a migraine shortly after his encounter with Nyota and the last thing he wanted was to do anything but hypo the pain radiating from his head and pass out before he could even start to think about cold, green fingers prying his brain apart, digging between folds of pink nerve tissue, searching.

Eventually, though, he had caved and agreed to meet his meddling captain, if only to tell the nosy bastard to quit interrupting him while he is still neck deep in experiments. 

As he rides the turbolift to the bridge, he has to keep a hand on the wall to steady himself. He hasn't been to the bridge since they got back. He has done everything possible to avoid running into Spock, even going so far as to cross check their schedules to make sure they are never breaking for meals at the same time. He tells himself that it's just a little PTSD and that the fear he has of the severe (but harmless) first officer will pass, but as the hours have turned to days, the sick feeling has only progressed. If he were anyone else, he would be hauling their ass to sickbay personally, lecture on mental health included, but he can't admit it. Can't face his staff and confess that a murderer with his friends' face did  _something_  to him that has caused him to hallucinate himself into a death panic every day. 

The other McCoy was a butcher, but he is a doctor. He can take care of himself, even if he knows, logically, rationally, that he is failing in his efforts. 

Two decks from the bridge and the turbolift slides to a stop to let on another passenger. Leonard inhales deeply and puts on his most indifferent, annoyed looking scowl (gotta maintain normalcy, after all) and starts to dig a padd from his belt to give himself something to look at rather than another human being. But the individual who steps in beside him when the doors swish open is not human. 

Spock greets him lightly.

Leonard drops the padd, the screen cracking somewhere near his feet. He is locked in place, frozen stiff by cold, black eyes.

"Doctor McCoy, are you well?" Spock asks him after a moment of tense silence. He bends gracefully to retrieve the broken piece of technology-- offers it to Leonard with the same impassive expression that he always wears. That his counterpart also wore.

"I'm fine," he croaks, somehow managing to sound winded despite staying in the same position for the last several minutes. His eyes flick to the turbolift doors. Spock is still standing too close to the entry for it to register that all passengers have crossed the threshold, locking the lift in place-- keeping him stuck on this level in a tiny white tube with the last man in the galaxy who he wants to be near. He is acutely aware of how small the lift is. Of how easily Spock could back him up into this wall too, letting the doors close them in while he drenches Leonard in red. 

"Doctor?"

Leonard jerks back to the present before he can slip into the darkness again. Spock appears to him in a fine mist of ash, like water splashed on a dry fire, dangerous and concealed as a secret. "Uh, sorry, Spock, just a little... distracted." He swallows down the taste of copper and holds his hand out to take the padd from Spock, thankful for small mercies when his fingers do not tremble. Spock's eyebrow raises curiously but he does not say anything further, merely sets the cracked tablet in Leonard's open palm.

His (cold, so cold) fingers only brush Leonard's for a fraction of a second, but it sends both men reeling. 

Spock clutches his own wrist like he's been told it will fall off, eyes huge and black when they fall on Leonard, who has shoved himself so far into the corner of the turbolift that he can feel the electricity humming behind the metal panels of the wall.

It had only been for a microsecond, but they had touched and Leonard could see nothing but red.

"Doctor," Spock pants. "Doctor, it is imperative that you accompany me to sickbay at once."

Leonard flinches when Spock takes a step toward him. Ice cold anxiety is churning in his gut despite how hot the lift suddenly feels and his breath has left him entirely, leaving him choking before his commanding officer. He can't even see Spock anymore-- his vision has tunneled into a single point of dripping red surrounded by a blackness that seeps from the ground and winds up his body, squeezing and pulling at his skin, wanting inside. In his ears, a low pitched hum builds from nothing into a deafening, tangible cacophony of screaming and blaring klaxons. 

Blood pours from his nose. 

Spock must be aware that his presence is affecting Leonard because he withdraws slightly, both palms open and turned up in a show of submission. "Doctor McCoy--Leonard," he starts. He makes a cautious reach, a step closer which allows the lift doors to finally shut, making Leonard's vision white out completely. "I know the way things are appearing to you at this moment must be disorienting, but it is extremely important that you calm yourself, Doctor. Your mind is not--"

_My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts._

Leonard's whole body seizes. From somewhere beyond the howling in his head, he feels Spock catch his falling body; feels himself gently lowered to lie prone on the floor, a cool hand on his heaving torso and another beneath his head to keep him from choking on his tongue. What a kindness, Leonard thinks as darkness swallows him. What kind, Vulcan hands. 

 

He'd laugh if he could. 

_-tbc-_

* * *

 Part two will be up soon. I wanted to post this all as one finished piece, but Thanksgiving is making life busy and I'm sick of sitting on this part HUFFS LOUDLY Anyway, this was based on[ this tumblr prompt](http://slashsailing.tumblr.com/post/66658513762/can-i-have-a-post-mirror-mirror-mckirk-aos-verse-where), which was actually for somebody else but I shamelessly took it for myself (with permission, of course, the Star Trek fandom keeps it classy.) The next part will include a much heavier McKirk presence as well as less disjointed scenes from their time in the mirror universe. Less hurt, more comfort. 

 I'll also [plug my own blog](http://mjolkk.tumblr.com) while we're at it, since my dash always needs more Star Trek.


End file.
